


Opening Up

by meridian_rose (meridianrose)



Category: Firefly
Genre: Community: whedonland, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 08:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8393977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meridianrose/pseuds/meridian_rose
Summary: Mal doesn't open up easily. For the wlreunion challenge prompts: war, past,  trust, betrayal, family





	

Mal wasn't used to opening up to people. The war didn't do that to him. The war just hardened his shell some more. He learned early on that people betrayed you, that secrets could be used against you, that the easiest way to thrust a knife in someone's back was to stand right next to them as if you were no threat at all.

Before the war he was happier, yes, more innocent in many ways, and he had faith that a just God could ensure a just 'verse.

The Alliance took his faith and ideals and ground them beneath the heel of their steel-capped boots into the dirt of Serenity Valley.

He lived, and there were many who didn't, and so Mal never thought of taking his own life (there were plenty who did, or who passively let it slip from their grasp). Besides, Heaven seemed like a joke now, faith just one big lie. Better to live as long as possible, lest this was all he ever had.

In time Mal discovered new ways to make a living that the Alliance disapproved of, and ways to pretend he was obeying the law when he was not. He had his comrade Zoë join him because without her at his side, he'd have been at least three times over by his count. It was lucky she did join him, because she saved him another three times within the first year of their new role as a "trading" vessel.

The crew grew slowly, organically. A pilot, because Mal couldn't fly the ship and negotiate and/or shoot at the same time. There were times he regretted choosing Wash, who'd somehow developed a romantic relationship with Zoë, but his insistence on wedding Mal's right hand woman aside, Wash was the best pilot Mal could ever have wished for.

They needed an engineer (Zoë wryly commented on how frequently the ship needed repairs but Mal didn't care if his beloved was high maintenance; it was part of her charm) and so they acquired one. Okay, not a very good one, but then mechanical genius Kaylee came along so it all worked out in the end.

They didn't really need Jayne but it made sense at the time to bring him aboard and he'd proven more useful than Mal would ever have expected.

Inara…well she brought class to the operation, gave them a useful cover for visiting places where a vessel like Serenity might otherwise be suspicious. Mal's relationship with Inara was always complicated, both of them proud and stubborn. He could never be the refined gentleman she deserved and she could never be a smuggler's wife. It didn't stop him finding her attractive and flirting with her the best way he knew how, with humour and thinly veiled insults.

They probably needed a doctor a lot sooner than they got one. Luckily their military experience and Jayne's mercenary past made them fairly good at treating minor and some not so minor wounds.

When they did get a doctor they also got his crazy sister – driven crazy by the Alliance's sick experiments, as it turned out – and a Shephard. Mal hated them all at one point. They'd put his crew in danger, they'd got Kaylee shot (Simon and/or River by being pursued by a bounty hunter), they'd got under his skin and stirred up memories he wanted to leave buried (Book and his preachiness).

River was also psychic but that came later and it was a whole other can of worms. By then Mal was arguing with Inara but there was a touch of honesty to their dealings, an underlying sincerity beneath his outer façade. It was hard not to like Kaylee, and she was the one who could always raise a genuine smile on his face. Zoë he had always trusted, but after they were both tortured by Niska, Mal bonded with Wash unexpectedly.

Jayne got taught a lesson about betrayal and he learned it good and proper, and Mal might never fully trust him, but they came to a new understanding and that was enough.

Book became more than someone tolerated, he became a friend, and that surprised Mal.

Simon was harder work. Simon was so very much Mal's opposite – idealistic and educated and a healer. Mal was cynical and lived by his wits, and would shoot first if he thought awkward questions might be asked. They both cared about their family though, Mal for those aboard his ship, Simon for his sister. They'd both been hurt by the Alliance. They both found Jayne to be heavy handed and dumb as a barrel of rocks. It was enough to build a rickety bridge.

Finally there was River. She didn't need him to open up. She could see straight through him. She was young and delicate and Mal wanted to protect her. It was hard to reconcile that with the strength and fighting abilities she possessed, skills that made her capable of protecting him.

Just as things were coming together – Inara back on board and everything – it had all started falling apart.

Book was dead. Wash was dead.

"Still flying," Mal kept saying, repeating it silently in his head, saying it aloud at every opportunity, making himself believe it, forcing himself to accept that this was enough.

River, less crazy and more deadly than ever, became his co-pilot, and that worked fine.

Then Inara died, falling victim to a long illness she'd hid from him since the day they met, something not even Simon's brilliance could fix.

It was almost too much. River slipped her hand into his after the memorial service and said, "Still flying."

"I don’t know," Mal replied. She squeezed his hand tighter.

"Still flying." River was resolute and Mal relented.

"Still flying, little one."

*

It was later, two engine repairs, four smuggling trips, and one bar fight later when River came, unbidden, into Mal's room.

"I can't sleep."

"Why's that?"

"Because you're thinking too loud."

Mal thought about that for a moment. "I don't know how I can think any quieter," he offered at last.

"You can talk out loud. It will quiet the voices." River became momentarily withdrawn and vulnerable. "I know."

Mal patted the bed and she perched alongside him. "It's okay," he said. "We'll never let the Alliance take you."

"Let them try." River took one of his hands. "Tell me. What you think. What haunts you."

Mal might not open up easy, but he'd learned at long last that sometimes you have to, and that sometimes it's for the best. River already knows his secrets and she'd never betray him. He knew this like he knew how to breathe.

"About you," he began. "And Simon. And Jayne, and Zoë…and Wash, and Book, and Inara." His voice hitched but he swallowed and carried on. "And how we're family and we can trust each other."

"Always," River assured him.

"Always." Mal squeezed her hand.


End file.
